Baofeng Utilizes Minster Presses at Massive Can End Manufacturing Facility
With the capacity to produce 18 billion can ends a year, one of the world’s largest easy-open end manufacturing facilities features 22 presses from the Nidec Minster Corporation integrated with some of the industry’s most advanced shell and end conversion systems.
Xiamen Baofeng Industry Co. LTD., located near the Chinese port city of Xiamen, began operations in 2012, and is poised to become a global leader in the production of easy-open can ends.
Baofeng is wholly owned by the Chen family, which recently divested its controlling interest in the Yinlu Foods — a leading Chinese food company — to the Nestle Corporation. Yinlu is a leading brand of ready-to-eat canned rice congee and canned beverages in China.
Current Baofeng Chairman Qingshui Chen has gone from a major purchaser of cans to a major manufacturer. The Chen family’s initial investment of approximately $240 million (USD) helped open the 240,000 square meter manufacturing facility with seven shell manufacturing lines and 15 end conversion lines. And there’s room for expansion.
Baofeng’s 240,000 square meter manufacturing facility is located near Xiamen, China, the country’s fourth largest port city.
Minster ECH-125 press is capable of producing 3,000 easy-open can ends every minute.
The shell press lines — both sheet-fed and coil-fed — feature Minster SAS-H60, SAS-H100, and P2H-100 presses. The end conversion lines feature Minster ECH-125 presses, some of which are integrated with Stolle Tetrad systems capable of running four-out dies at 750 strokes per minute, producing up to 3,000 easy-open can ends a minute. Other presses are integrated with systems provided by Suzhou SLAC.
At the Baofeng plant, shell presses and conversion presses are lined up at opposite ends of the facility. In between are robotic conveyor systems that transfer large quantities of shells to the conversion presses without manual handling.
State-of-the-art manufacturing machinery is a key part of Baofeng’s goal to become the biggest and best manufacturer of easy-open can ends in the rapidly expanding Chinese market.
Ray Lee, Equipment Engineering Manager at Baofeng, said the Minster Presses are a big part of the commitment to high quality production machinery.
“With our Minster presses we have good parallelism of the slide that helps us maintain the tolerance and quality for each part,” Lee said. “Minster has remained the leader in the container industry. The cost performance of Minster presses is better than the other suppliers. The presses are very durable and easy to maintain.”
Minster presses have been at the forefront of innovation in the container industry. The features and precision of single and double action shell presses facilitate material down-gauging and cost savings at industry-leading production speeds.
And when it comes to converting the shells to easy-open ends, the Minster ECH-125 press has become the industry standard for high production speeds, extreme precision, reliability, and dependability.
Lee said another factor in selecting Minster presses is fast and dependable customer service.
“Service reaction time and the experience of the service personnel is very important,” he said. “Time is output and output is money.”
Baofeng has the capabilities to produce many types and sizes of easy-open can ends.
Minster P2H-100 shell press aides in the manufacturing of food can ends.
Nidec Minster is able to provide superior customer service through its recently expanded service center in Ningbo, China where common spare parts are warehoused for rapid deployment throughout Asia. The Ningbo facility also has manufacturing capabilities for remanufacturing and major rebuilds, and full-time technical support personnel for providing assistance to customers throughout the region.
In addition Nidec Minster has four field service employees stationed at different cities in China for quick response.
Minster also has access to the global resources of the Nidec Coproration — its parent company.
Baofeng currently employs 700 people at its Xiamen operations. Major customers include Yinlu Foods, Tsingtao beer and Pepsi Cola. Numerous other international beverage companies are currently auditing Baofeng, and company officials are expecting increases in orders.
While currently not running at full capacity, Baofeng officials are confident that their commitment to ‘making the best can ends in China’ will not only result in full capacity, but will also facilitate the need to expand what is already the world’s biggest end-making facility.
At Xiamen Baofeng Industry, a long row of Minster ECH end conversion presses accepts can end shells from robot conveyors. The Baofeng manufacturing facility has the capacity to produce 18 billion easy-open can ends a year.
No. 1668 Butang Mid Road,
Wuxian Town, Tong An District,
Xiamen City, China
+ 86 592 3752778 (Tel.)
+ 86 592 2752789 (Fax)
www.xmbaofeng.com